It’s the Chicago way and more proof that the catchy “hope and change” bumper sticker is a fraud. Here’s what we have learned: Raise millions for Obama and you get 1) hundreds of millions in taxpayer-backed loans or 2) a prime job inside the Obama network.
From WaPo:
Big donors considering whether to work the phones raising money for President Obama’s reelection campaign might consider the fate of his 2008 bundlers. Many of them, it turns out, won plum jobs in his administration.
Obama campaigned on what he called “the most sweeping ethics reform in history” and has frequently criticized the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers, volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from other rich donors.
More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.
At least 24 Obama bundlers were given posts as foreign ambassadors, including in Finland, Australia, Portugal and Luxembourg. Among them is Don Beyer, a former Virginia lieutenant governor who serves as ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
“In filling these posts, the administration looks for the most qualified candidates who represent Americans from all walks of life,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “Being a donor does not get you a job in this administration, nor does it preclude you from getting one.”
The White House will lie even when the proof is thrown in their face. You bundle for Obama=You get rewarded.
It is a time-honored tradition to reward political supporters with administration jobs, ambassadorships in particular. And Obama’s administration falls in line with the previous one in terms of the share of ambassadors who are political appointees rather than career Foreign Service officers.
The Foreign Service Act of 1980, however, states that “contributions to political campaigns should not be a factor in the appointment of an individual as a chief of mission.”
Obama has appointed 59 ambassadors who were not career Foreign Service officers, and of those, 40 percent were bundlers.
Here comes the information many didn’t know. Eric Holder, and Obama’s college buddy Julius Genachowski were Obama bundlers who received plum jobs in lieu of raising cash for their boss.
…Obama has appointed campaign bundlers to a range of other jobs as well. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was a bundler, raising at least $50,000, as was Julius Genachowski, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, who raised at least half a million dollars.
Obama hired bundler Steve Spinner as a liaison in the Energy Department. According to internal e-mails turned over in a congressional investigation, Spinner pressed for staff members to finalize a government loan for Solyndra, the now-shuttered solar company in which another campaign bundler was a major investor. Spinner, according to the Obama administration, did not make any decisions affecting Solyndra.
It’s pay-to-play baby. Chicago-style.
[...] how much money they contributed and then remember this guys have received billions from Obama. The Washington Post has a great investigative article about the pay-to-play being ran by Obama. On the website for [...]
[...] represented many of the banks who received TARP bailouts. Obama has a documented history of rewarding bundlers with plum jobs in his [...]
[...] Half of Obama’s campaign bundlers were rewarded with plum jobs inside his administration. Steven J. Spinner and Steve Westly pushed most of the DOE approved taxpayer-backed loans and happen to be big-time Obama bundlers. [...]